Transplant 2 Day - 2

This is Karen, posting for my parents tonight.  Dad has had a tough day here in the hospital.

In the early evening yesterday, he started feeling uncomfortable.  That progressed to severe spleen pain in the middle of the night.  The nurses and doctor gave him a few different medications to help.  Good sleep was hard to come by until that was under control, which was by 3 am.  His pain has continued throughout the day and the nurses have been working hard to keep it under control.  The doctor didn't consider it to be an emergency, though they are going to do an abdominal ultrasound in the morning.

The spleen is an important organ for cleaning and filtering blood.  It removes old blood cells and recycles iron.  Although people can live without a spleen, Dad certainly can't afford to lose his.  He experienced a spleen attack in January 2012, just before diagnosis.  It wasn't identified as a spleen attack until February 2012 when Dad and Mom first met with the oncologist.  Before he knew about the cancer, Dad was convinced that the pain was either a heart attack or pneumonia.  Last spring, the issue with his spleen was that his cancer was causing him to overproduce white blood cells; since these cells were abnormal, they wouldn't die properly and the spleen couldn't get rid of them.   There was a big backlog in the spleen, which caused massive swelling and pain.  Once he was put on oral chemo pills last March, the spleen swelling went down a bit, and then went close to normal after his first transplant.  Over the past two weeks though, the spleen has enlarged some again.  We hope to find out more about this tomorrow.

Dad's hemoglobin went up over 70 so he didn't need a blood transfusion today.  He did receive platelets as they were <10.  He is struggling with nausea and vomiting today, so the nurses are running Gravol through the IV to help settle that down, on top of the normal anti-nausea pills.  They continued to run the rabbit drug through the IV as well.  The spleen pain and nausea are not considered as reactions to this drug, but side effects to everything.

Mom and Dad were able to listen to a sermon on CD this morning, from earlier in March on the last Lord's Day of the Catechism.  The Lord answers our prayers - He knows, listens, and provides.  So when we say Amen - So Let It Be, we confess that He will hear and He does care.  Amen to His faithfulness, His character, and His promises.

Prayer Requests
1. Thanks that the biodrug has gone in for two days without severe side effects.
2. For relief from nausea and pain, and a good night's rest.
3. That his body may be ready to receive the donor cells on Tuesday.
4. That Tuesday may go well for both Dad and Uncle Clarence.